


brain's haunted

by mathonwys



Series: Fleet 77-2 [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Hermitblr Space Outlaws AU, Minor Violence, Swearing, anime boy downloads a virus (not clickbait!), multiversal shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29223279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathonwys/pseuds/mathonwys
Summary: “I think my brain has a virus.”No answer. Landia waited. On the other end of the line, Milo bluescreened.-Landia gets malware. It makes sense in context.(tagged as Original Work because of there being no ties to Hermitcraft besides background worldbuilding mentions)
Relationships: Landia (OC) & Milo Quinton (OC)
Series: Fleet 77-2 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2145558





	brain's haunted

**Author's Note:**

> i dont think this gets properly explained in any of the fics, so:
> 
> SO!Landia is an AU of one of my old OCs named KG, who has this like... thing where they're duplicated across a bunch of universes but they all share awareness and memories and it's super confusing? this is less than ideal, because they mix things up a lot. Milo is an AU version of KG's best friend, and therefore has to put up with their bullshit.
> 
> i literally have no idea who the audience for these is besides myself and the 77-2 discord but im trying to get better about posting my fics
> 
> ...i have no idea if this should be under my main alias or my minecraft one.

Landia twirled the handguns in a clumsy flourish that was not anywhere near as cool as they were intending. Their friend— tall and lanky, blonde, hair tied back loosely in a shitty ponytail— watched with half-lidded eyes as they tried the trick again and dropped one of the pair on their foot. “AGH—“

“It’s not going to work,” T1 drawled. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

Landia huffed in frustration as they retrieved the gun. “I wanna look— I can get it right, I can do a cool thing! Honest!” The friend they were currently trying to impress continued looking, uh, unimpressed.

“You’re treating it like an old-fashioned pistol. It’s got more weight to it, and the trigger guard has a different design because of the alt mode.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not gonna work.”

Landia stood there buffering for a moment ( _okay, this isn’t working out because it’s a different kinda gun, have I even used anything like this before_ ), then tossed one gun up, caught it, hit the button on the side of the handgrip with their thumb, and flicked their wrist in one smooth motion. The barrel of the gun snapped up and locked into place as the weapon changed modes, and Landia couldn’t hide their grin— not that they wanted to— as they pulled the trigger to activate the energy sword’s blade.

T1 crossed his arms as they tried the same trick with the other weapon and missed the catch.

“You’re pretty shit with your left hand,” he noted. Landia muttered curses in an alien language that _probably_ didn’t exist in this universe (unless it did? Who even knows at this point) as they scrambled around to retrieve their gun. The mechanic-slash-pilot-slash-weapons guy made no effort to help. One more time! Landia clicked the sword back into gun mode, tossed them both up, caught them both off-sync and with only a little bit of stumble, hit the wrong button, and ejected the magazines. God fucking damnit.

T1 barked in laughter and doubled over as Landia tried to salvage the situation, which mostly amounted to figuring out how to reload while panicking in embarrassment. They managed it after some fumbling, then gave up and switched both weapons into “storage” mode so they could clip them onto their belt without being obviously Carrying A Guns. Woo, future tech! “You might be better off with just the one,” the blonde pointed out. “If you’re in a gunfight and fuck up like that, you’re done for.”

Okay, so maybe they weren’t quite as ambidextrous in this universe as they were in others, but it just took some doing, right? “Just gotta figure it out,” they said as their internal monologue became external. “D’ya honestly think I don’t got this shit on lock, Tail?”

“Milo,” he corrected them with a tone that suggested he’d done it several times and was really, really tired of doing so. Whoops. Right, this was one of the universes where he _didn’t_ go by that. You’d think they’d be able to remember that considering he’s human and not a furry this time around, but honestly they’re having enough trouble remembering to call him ‘T1’ to his face and not just in narration. “And, if you want a honest answer? No. You’re a showoff and I can’t believe I’m actually helping you on this.”

He stretched, then grabbed his jacket from where he’d left it on his chair and pulled it on. “Speaking of helping you with things I shouldn’t. You were serious about the augment?”

Landia’s hand brushed against a spot at the base of their neck obscured mostly by their hair. “Yeah. Why not, right?” They shrugged. “Not anythin’ as fancy as yours, but I’ve got time! It’s a good start.”

Milo looked them over, like he was considering saying something, then shook his head and walked past them. “Sure, wonderboy. Just don’t fuck yourself up.”

“Failed step one,” Landia muttered under their breath as they tagged along behind him. He’d talked them out of jumping into the deep end when it came to cool sci-fi body mods. Originally they’d been pretty set on it, but then he’d pointed out that as somebody that was _an actual full-on cyborg_ at this point (which, again, really cool? Should totally tell T1— the _other_ one— about that) he’s talking from experience. They could roll with that. They’d had enough cash money from a job to afford some neural stuff that let them interface with some of their personal tech, and also would help out for the future if they _did_ decide to go get cool extra parts or whatever, and while thinking about it did wig them out a little it was going good so far.

Speaking of cash money. “How much for the these?” Landia asked, tapping one of their shiny-new weapons. Oh, man, they get to name these! Awesome! Okay, one of them should be the Polar Star because Cave Story _rules_ , and… what was the other one the Polar Star upgrades into? The Spur? Doesn’t sound nearly as cool. What were the other ones called… Oh, wait, maybe the Megabuster? But then it wouldn't match— 

Milo snapped his fingers in front of their face. Landia yelped and smacked his hand away. The part-time weapons dude smirked at their reaction. “Space cadet. Anyway. Consider these a freebie so you don’t get yourself killed out there, because I doubt you could afford them anyway.” Landia cringed a little. Right, he didn’t know about their day job.

Was it a day job? It was something they got paid for. They Knew stuff, and sometimes they liked helping people out, and then they started getting paid for it somewhere along the line and that was _probably_ not gonna go anywhere good but they weren’t employed besides that so, y’know, take it when you’re given it. Besides, the ConVex were usually chill, right? As long as they didn’t play with fire _too_ much, they were golden.

Incidentally, that was why they’d hit ~~T1~~ Milo up for some shiny pewpew swords. Never know when you might need to throw down, yeah? Sure, they were better at close combat, but they _did_ know how to shoot a gun and being up close and personal with a sword when in the middle of a gunfight was not gonna go well for them so… Sword gun! Gun sword! And, hey, gotta look stylin’ if they ended up on the run or living an exciting life of a space pirate or whatever. Milo was probably right about the stunts being impractical, but also it would _totally_ pay off if they could do it right (and not get a bullet in their spleen for their troubles).

“Thanks a ton,” Landia said. Milo snorted, but had a small smile on his face as he waved them off.

“Don’t get too used to it.” He narrowed his eyes a little. “Before you go— _Please_ tell me you’re not jacking into random things and fucking around too much. Seriously, if you get stupid about it, you're gonna regret it."

It was Landia's turn to wave him off. Two can play at that game! "I've been plenty careful!" Milo didn't look convinced. Well, that's _his_ problem. They're not a kid anymore (admittedly, they don't remember how old they are right now, but that's probably fine), and despite their track record of reckless stupidity they're pretty confident in their ability to not give their brain malware.

* * *

It was about 2 or 3 in the morning. Landia’s hand reached out, groped around, latched onto their communicator, and dragged it across the floor until it was close enough for them to hold it up to their face and squint at the screen as it illuminated them in the dark and reflected off their glasses. Up until they’d needed to lift their head up for squinting-at-communicator reasons, they’d been face down on the floor and… uh, not exactly _vibing_ , but they’d been _existing_ at bare minimum.

They were also very, very aware of there now being a Problem.

Landia brought up the holographic interface, scrolled through their contacts list, and poked the “call” symbol next to the contact helpfully labeled _T1 but not a furry (Milo)_. Then pressed it again, and again, and on their fourth try the screen switched to a graphic saying ‘ _AUDIO ONLY_ ’ as Milo picked up.

“ _It’s 3 AM,_ ” Milo grumbled, his voice crackling a little from less-than-stellar microphone quality. Even without him having his camera on, Landia could easily imagine him barely awake and giving the screen an impressive glare. “ _What do you_ **_want_** _?_ ”

Hoo boy, where to _start_. Landia sat up and put their hands together. “Hey Tail?” Whoops. Failed step one. Maybe they should update his contact info to something more helpful, seeing as that note hadn't helped at all.

“ _Not my name, Lan._ ” He waited for them to continue talking despite his irritation, though. Landia took a deep breath as they tried to find the right words for this.

“I think my brain has a virus.”

No answer. Landia waited. On the other end of the line, Milo bluescreened.

“ _Uh,_ ” he said after several minutes of processing whatever the hell just came out of Landia’s mouth. The nervous chuckle he heard was not helping matters at all. “ _Y— Seriously?_ ”

Landia nodded, wondered if their camera was on, discovered it wasn’t, and said “Yeah. Yeah, uh… L— Look, iunno how much I can get into it right now ‘cause it is, like, four in the morning, but…“

“ _No, you are_ **_not_ ** _leaving it at that. What do you mean, you got a_ **_virus_** _?_ "

"Brain's haunted," Landia said, like that explained anything at all.

There was some more long, very awkward silence. Landia toyed with their hair as they waited. Milo let out a long, aggravated sigh, and Landia heard a _thump_ that was definitely him facedesking. " _KG. Serious time._ **_Words_** _. Please use them._ "

Landia crossed their legs and held their ankles. "Okay, okay, um. Youuuu… you know the KG Thing. Yea?"

" _Not really, but none of your explanations make any sense so no-context-nonsense me into next Thursday I guess."_

Okay, Milo was definitely cranky. Unfortunately for Milo, Landia was already picking up speed. "So something really really big went down in, uh… In a somewhere. Not important! But I had to be that somewhere, but not… as _me_? I had to stop being Landia for a bit." They took a deep breath. "And then I started being Landia again, but I was doing stuff as Landia even when not focused on being Landia because it's not like I stop _existing_ I just change my focus to somewhere else—"

" _Please just get to the point,_ " Milo groaned. " _You had an adventure somewhere else, bottom text._ **_Why do you have malware_** _._ "

Landia shrugged, then remembered he couldn't see it. "I don't know! It's just— I started focusing on _here_ again, and I'd said some stupid stuff without thinking 'cause I _wasn't_ thinking, and then… Uh… " Hm. This part was hard to word (as of the rest of this nonsense wasn't hard already). 

> _As it turned out, Milo's weapons had come in handy. KG had been wrapping things up and then_ uh oh, gunfight _and switched focus in time to draw their handguns and dodge into cover. Shit shit_ **_shit_ ** _this was bad._
> 
> _They fired off a couple shots, then ducked back down as the return volley narrowly missed them. Their aim was… less than stellar, especially with the Polar Star— T1 had been right about their left being sub-optimal, and it was hard to aim with panic rushing through them._
> 
> **_This is interesting,_ ** _they thought. Or… sort of. It sounded like their thoughts, and it was definitely something in their head, but the tone was more calculated and subdued among the various SHITSHITSHITOHGODOHFUCKs they were looping._ **_In over your head, huh?_ **
> 
> **_Here._ ** _Landia focused. Not, like,_ focused _, they were already doing plenty of that because they didn't want to find out what would happen if a KG got shot to pieces and if they could get outta this situation ASAP that would be baller, but it was like a moment of clarity cutting through the noise. They switched the Polar Star to sword mode, shot the attacker in the leg with the Spur, then rushed forwards while they were off-balance to clonk the guy in the head with the Star's hilt after a moment of_ **_wait hold on I don't wanna do a murder—_ **
> 
> **_Yeah OK_ **
> 
> _and then they bounced out of there and_
> 
> _then their memory very conveniently cut out, and they were back home._
> 
> _Uh, swag?_

Except the story Landia told Milo wasn't really anything like that. It was a lot shorter, and had a lot of missing details, and mostly amounted to "I got in a gunfight and my brain went weird".

Not very helpful.

" _...and you're sure it's not some bleedover from G. Spark or something?_ " Milo asked, dubious. Weird how the multiversal-bullshit answer was the more likely one here. Landia shook their head.

"Nonono, it was totally different! And, uh, bleed doesn't work like that anyway." Landia fidgeted. "I don't know how to say—"

Milo sighed. " _Again, it's 3 am. Your life is weird all the time because you have, like, 50 of them at once. Go to bed._ "

"It's more like I have _10_ of them all at once," Landia interjected. Milo hung up. 

Well, he was right about them probably needing to sleep. Landia frowned as they laid back down on the floor and rested their head on their crossed arms. They didn't really feel tired, though… Some of it was probably because of being in a life-or-death gunfight, but also they were just very confused and their thoughts were racing too much for them to even, uh, think.

 **_Alright, enough of that_ **, they(?) thought, and then passed the fuck out.


End file.
